Next in Line
by Richan MMI
Summary: Amy has always been passed over when it comes to things. What if her dad was missing after her mother tried to take over her life? Three days after she turned seventeen, she's told that her English cousin has offered to house her for a year.


Title: Next In Line  
Author: Richan  
Rating: K  
Spoilers: thru HBP for HP; Season 1 for BtVS  
Summary: Amy's has always been passed over when it comes to things. What if her dad was missing after her mother tried to take over her life? Three days after she turned seventeen, she's told that her English cousin has offered to house her for a year.  
AN: This one's been floating in my head for quite a while.

* * *

"So what's going to happen now?" Buffy asked as she accompanied Amy down the hallway to their next class. 

She shrugged, still confused by the letter she had received the day before. "I don't know. Some guy's making the trip from London to talk to me about some relative of dad's."

Buffy looked her straight in the eyes. "If you need help with the tweed-speak, let me know. I think I know what Giles is talking about. Sometimes."

Amy smiled at her friend. "Thanks." As she sat down at her desk, she pulled out her books. "So, am I the only one who's creeped out by the new science teacher?"

* * *

"He's what?" Amy thought she was going to faint at the news. 

"Miss Madison, your father's nephew is a wizard," Mr. Shacklebolt said. When he arrived at the door, he had told her that he was a representative of the English Ministry. What he hadn't said until he'd been seated at the sofa was that it was the magical branch.

Amy had been amazed when she saw him through the peephole in the door. A tall man, his bald head had gleamed as the sun shone across the black skin. And her eyes had kept coming back to the gold hoop that went through his left earlobe. He'd been dressed in strange clothes - Buffy would have called them _so last decade,_ but they seemed to fit him in an odd way.

"I understand that this may be a little overwhelming - "

"A little?" she muttered in a strangled voice.

" - But your cousin is considered to be one of the greatest wizards of our age, due to his bravery in the Second Blood War. I do have to admit that the Ministry has some reservations about his taking custody of you, but they are minor compared to the US's wish to have you with relatives until you turn eighteen. I believe you just reached your seventeenth birthday?"

Amy felt dazed as she answered, "three days ago." His earring seemed to winking at her.

"Miss Madison, are you all right?" His brown eyes were eyeing her with concern.

She blinked hard as she tried to focus on his white teeth as they contrasted sharply with his dark skin. "I... I think I need to lay down," she managed to get out before she fell sideways into darkness.

* * *

What did it say about her if Amy admitted that she was scared to death? She hadn't felt like this when she'd arrived at the airport, but halfway into the ten hour flight to London she was _thisclose_ to having a panic attack. 

There seemed to be a thousand 'what ifs' running through her head. So many, in fact, that she was starting to get them mixed up. And it didn't exactly help when the strange man next to her started snoring. She half-wished that Mr. Shacklebolt had stayed with her, but he had left a day earlier than she had while she finished packing her things.

It had been hard to pack up the house, but there hadn't been much else she could do. Her friends had come over to help her, and it had been especially helpful for Mr. Giles to go through her mother's magic things. _She_ hadn't wanted to touch them, at least. The furniture she had donated to various charities, but she had boxed up family items to put into storage, since she would be coming back.

She would have to spend the next year in England with her cousin, until she turned eighteen. At that point, Amy would be able to go back home and try to figure out what to do with the rest of her life.

"Miss, would you like something to drink?"

Amy looked up to find the steward watching her with concern. The last time he had come around, he had frowned when she had turned down the meal, saying she wasn't hungry. Now it looked like she would have to take something before he just gave her something. There had to be something about flying first class, though.

She nodded, asked for a soda, and tried to get into the movie that was just beginning. The more things she could do to get her racing mind to calm down, the better.

* * *

Amy looked around the crowded airport, trying to find somebody that could help her. Mr. Shacklebolt had told her that her cousin would meet her at the airport, but she hadn't seen anyone waiting in the arrivals lounge. Well, except for the teenager with the black hair, but he was sleeping and wore a cast on his right leg. 

Once she found an airline representative, and told to wait while they checked on what was happening, Amy plopped down on a seat across from the sleeping boy. He was kind of cute, except for the brown smudges below his eyes. He was rather skinny, too, as his left knee looked to be trying its best to poke through his jeans and his arms were like sticks as they crossed over his barely moving chest.

The representative she had spoken to interrupted her study of him.

"Miss Madison?"

Amy nodded.

"I'm afraid that the telephone number we were given has been disconnected. I will have to talk with my supervisor to see what we can do next."

She slid back down into her not-quite-comfortable seat and closed her eyes as the woman left. In doing so, she missed the boy's eyes opening, studying her from underneath barely opened eyes.

Amy grit her teeth together and, under her breath, cursed her cousin.

"You haven't met him, you know."

Her head shot up from where she was glaring at the tiled floor to meet green eyes set in the boy's pale face.

"He could be nice."

"I hardly doubt that," Amy ranted. "I get here, after having to go through my house and pack, finding out my dad's missing and presumed dead. Then my asshole of a cousin decides not to show up to pick me up after I spent ten awful hours trapped next to a man who snored loud enough to wake the dead."

The boy frowned deeper the more she went on. There were grooves in the side of his face by the time she stopped, which gave her pause for the moment. A terrible thought went through her head - _Oh god, was this who_ was _supposed to pick her up?_

His face had relaxed, probably at the horror that had stretched across hers. "Did you figure it out yet?"

Amy narrowed her eyes at him. "You're the one who's picking me up, right?"

The boy smirked. "I'm your cousin."

Her eyes widened at the statement, even as some part of her - a little part, mind you - was greatly disappointed that, if it was true, she couldn't date her own cousin. The rest of her was thinking that this was a _great_ joke - don't trip over the sarcasm - and that she wanted to hit him.

"Nice joke."

The smirk changed to a normal smile. "I'm not kidding. I'm Harry Potter."

Amy's breathing stopped at the shock. The cousin she had been sent to live with until she turned eighteen was the same age as herself. Somebody up in heaven was laughing at her.

* * *

Amy decided that her cousin's life was just plain strange. There was no other description for it. After getting everything straightened out at Heathrow, the two had made their way to Harry's London house - he had a _London_ house, implying that he had more of them stashed away in the country. There they had met up with his friends, who were friendly enough, even if the boy named Ron asked her a million questions about 'muggle' things. 

She had shrugged off the oddness until dinner, when Ron's father had blindsided her and asked all of the questions his son had asked, plus a million more of his own. They had even included some on lamp plugs of all things. Like, she knew anything about those or cars, which seemed to be a big topic for Mr. Weasley.

She liked Mrs. Weasley, though. The red-headed woman was just as exasperated as Amy was at the interrogation, and had separated her out from amongst the men to sit in the kitchen with Harry's other friend, Hermione, and her only daughter, Ginny. Harry had offered to fix the meal, but Mrs. Weasley had shooed him out to go play chess with Ron. Harry had looked as if he was about to be executed as Ginny told her that Ron was an absolute master at the game, and Harry was about to get killed at chess, just like the rest of them had.

Hermione had started to explain some of the things she might see earlier in the day and continued once it was just the four of them in the kitchen as Mrs. Weasley fixed dinner. Things began to make much more sense to Amy, who had been startled to find the portraits actually talk with her and not just follow her with their eyes like they did in Scooby-Doo cartoons. It also explained Mr. Weasley's fascination with lamp plugs and cars.

After dinner, two new people had arrived. Amy had been introduced to them as Moony and Tonks, but afterwards had been told by Moony to just call him Remus, which was his real name. He was quite a bit older than Tonks, but the two apparently had been married two months ago. After watching them for a bit, Amy could see that they worked together. She also thought that it was cool that Tonks could change her hair color with only a thought.

Mrs. Weasley had given her a potion to stop jet lag, but it was hard for her body to stop getting up for school. Amy quietly made her way down the stairs, figuring that she would be able to find something for breakfast, even if no one else was awake. She was surprised to find Harry sitting at the table and reading a paper. Next to him, a white owl was perched on the table, picking a slice of bacon off of his plate.

"Good morning, Amy," Harry greeted her.

"Does she do that a lot?" she asked, pointed at the owl.

The owl hooted and bobbed her head as Harry quietly laughed. "Yes. Hedwig loves bacon, and takes every chance she can get to steal it from me."

Hedwig turned her head around and looked at Harry with a fierce stare. Amy giggled at the scene as she sat down.

"When do you get your cast off?" she asked as she picked out some toast and bacon and put them on her plate.

"It's already off." Harry looked at her from over his paper. "Mrs. Weasley took it off last night before she and Mr. Weasley left."

"They left?"

Harry nodded. "They went back to their own house, as their oldest son's wife is close to giving birth. Mrs. Weasley wanted to make sure she was there when the call came. It's her first grandchild."

Amy could understand that. "Who made breakfast, then?"

He smiled. "I did. I always had to do it when I was growing up, but now that I'm doing it for myself, I don't mind."

There was something about his explanation that sounded wrong. Maybe that wasn't the best word for it, but she couldn't think of anything else that would fit.

"Why are you my guardian and not your parents?" Amy hesitantly asked once they were finished eating.

Harry sighed. "My parents were murdered when I was one, and I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle. I lived with them until the day I turned seventeen, which is the age you become adult in this part of the world."

"So where are they?" Amy curiously asked.

"Once we found out that your mother was casting spells, and that you had done some as well, we knew that the Dursleys wouldn't want you in their house. They certainly didn't want me there, and I saved their bloody house. My aunt never told me that she'd had a younger brother who had run away when he was sixteen, and none of my dad's friends ever knew about him. But I know what it's like to be unwanted, so I would rather you come here than be stuck in a foster home - is that right? - than anywhere else."

She sat back at that and nodded. All of the friends that she had told about the magick spells had been awed by it, asking her to do more. This aunt and uncle were on the other side of the spectrum (see, she did learn something in science, after all). Then something else Harry had said caught her attention.

"You saved their house?"

Harry shrugged. "I was almost ready to leave on my seventeenth birthday when the wards failed around the house. Old Voldie's death eaters were popping up through the woodwork, but I held them off. The entire time, Vernon was yelling at me for using my 'freakish magic stuff' and telling me that he wanted me out of the house."

"Voldie? Magic stuff?" Hermione hadn't said anything about this last night. She had assumed that they used magic like she did. Amy stared at her cousin.

He smirked. "Just wait until you see how we ring other people up."


End file.
